Seventeen paintings stolen from Verona museum retrieved in Ukraine: Police in Ukraine have retrieved the 17 Old Master paintings stolen from the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona last November and will soon return them to the museum.

Accused Knoedler Forgery Mastermind Gets Postponement for Extradition From Spain: José Carlos Bergantiños Díaz, the alleged mastermind behind the massive Knoedler forgery scandal that eventually shuttered the long-running New York-based gallery in 2011, has won a postponement of his extradition to the US to face fraud and money laundering charges.

Will British Museums Reveal Extent of Secret BP Funding?: British Petroleum’s sponsorship of a number of British museums has come under the microscope thanks to an ethics investigation of the UK’s Museums Association.

Romania Takes Step Toward Restitution to Holocaust Survivors: The Romanian government on Tuesday approved legislation that would give priority to restitution claims by Holocaust survivors for property lost during World War II and under Communist rule.

19th Century Oil Painting, Mummy Portraits Latest Artifacts Recovered by the Mosse Art Restitution Project: A significant oil painting by a famed 19th Century French painter and two rare Egyptian mummy portraits also known as “Fayum Portraits” are the latest artifacts recovered by the Mosse Art Restitution Project.

Paddle8 and Auctionata Announce Surprise Merger: Online auctions start-ups Paddle8 and Auctionata have announced today that the two companies will join forces and will cater to what they define in a statement as an “underserved” middle market.

Phillips Hikes Fees Amid Global Expansion and Hiring Spree: Phillips has long wanted to provide stiffer competition to its larger counterparts, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, as a leading auctioneer. Now the house is raising the fees that it charges buyers in an effort to increase its revenues.

Italian Mayor Refuses to Loan Piero della Francesca Masterpiece Fearing It Won’t Be Returned: Monterchi, a small town in the Italian region of Tuscany, has turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from Rome’s Capitoline museums after refusing its request to borrow Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto fresco, fearing it might never be returned. The Renaissance masterpiece has been subject to dispute since World War II and its ownership is still unresolved.

Artprice Applies Blockchain Technology to Global Art Market: Art has entered the blockchain ecosystem as Artprice announces it is developing its own proprietary Art Market Blockchain, protected under intellectual property law. Artprice has built a distributed database containing specifications of years of complaints and lawsuits between the different segments of the Art Market chain and their relations with tax authorities and State judicial and customs services.

The Art Market: Japanese drama in New York salerooms: In the late 1980s, Japanese buying became a byword for excessive spending in the art market. With the “bubble economy” at its height, tycoons frenetically drove up the prices of work by Van Gogh, Monet or Picasso, until the boom ended suddenly in 1990. But last week a young Japanese internet billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, splurged almost $100m on contemporary art during New York’s key sales.

Newly-Revealed Documents Show Sotheby’s Contacted Helly Nahmad About Modigliani Claim: Two letters subpoenaed from Sotheby’s in April as part of a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme court by the estate of Oscar Stettiner against Helly Nahmad and his gallery, show an executive at Sotheby’s addressing the gallery as the consignor of a Modigliani painting that is at the heart of the suit. The Nahmad family has long claimed that the owner of the painting is the Panama registered company International Art Center (IAC).

Christie’s storage facility still faces $23m worth of lawsuits for Superstorm Sandy damage: Christie’s may still have to pay for a combined $23m worth of art that was damaged when Superstorm Sandy flooded its Brooklyn warehouse in 2012. Two decisions, one by the New York appellate court in March, and one by the lower court in February, are keeping all four existing cases against Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS) alive.

Guelph Treasure Heirs Explain Why Case Belongs In U.S. Court: We filed yesterday the opposition to the motion to dismiss my clients’ claims over the 1935 forced sale of the Guelph Treasure, or Welfenschatz. The motion was filed two months ago by defendants Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Germany’s arguments were revisionist and alarming in a number of troubling ways, most seriously because they tried to excuse persecution of Jews before an arbitrary date as an internal affair not subject to U.S. court jurisdiction, and because it repudiated Germany’s international commitments under the Washington Principles to address restitution claims on the merits.

Legal battle between graffiti artist and fashion label back on: The legal battle between the graffiti artist Joseph Tierney and the Italian fashion designer Moschino and its creative director Jeremy Scott is not over yet. A settlement reached between the parties in April has now fallen apart.

Review: SFMoMA’s Expansion Sets a New Standard for Museums: The big white crinkly addition that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opened on Saturday bumps this widely respected institution into a new league, possibly one of its own.

Panama Papers Reveal Offshore Accounts of Art World A-Listers Dominique Lévy and Ella Fontanals-Cisneros: The other shoe may have dropped with regard to the art world and the Panama Papers. Despite initial speculation that Mossack Fonseca—the Panamanian law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal—worked with few American clients, several news outlets are now reporting that they have established connections between art world A-listers and various offshore companies. Among those named are art collectors Ella Fontanals-Cisneros and Denise Rich, Canadian-born magazine publisher Louise Blouin, and art dealer Dominique Lévy.

Iran’s Legendary Shah Collection Will Travel to Berlin: After extensive speculation and complex negotiations it has been confirmed that the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA)’s impressive collection of Western artworks will be shown at Berlin’s National Gallery from December 2016 to February 2017. It is the first time the closely-guarded works will be exhibited outside of Iran.

Art Fair Tokyo to feature more overseas representation and lower prices at this year’s event: Every year, Tokyo becomes a hot spot for art and, every year, newcomers to the scene consider taking the plunge and buying their first piece. Now in its 11th year, Art Fair Tokyo hopes to make things a little easier on first-time buyers.

The New Face of African Art: At a time when values for some blue-chip contemporary artworks have fallen by a third from a year ago, collectors are finding pockets of strength in a surprising new art mecca—Africa.

Australia Council for the Arts to Invest $112 Million in Arts Organizations: The Australia Council for the Arts announced today that $112 million in funding will be invested in small and medium sized arts organizations over a four-year period.

Whiteley fraudsters found guilty: Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham has called for better regulation of the high-stakes fine art market after two men were found guilty of selling a fake $2.5 million Brett Whiteley painting to the investment banker.

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